Bethesda's E3 Conference Review

Just a lame nerd with little better to do than rant and rave about movies, anime, video games, animation, comics, etc.

Bethesda opened with its revival of the Quake franchise, which definitely seems promising. I am worried about the company focusing too much on past properties or making the revivals too repetitive, but it sounds like it's giving Quake fans what they would want. My biggest disappointment of the show so far was Prey 2. It looks intriguing, but the debut trailer from a few years ago was so amazing that most follow-ups — let alone such a dramatic shift — are going to be a let down.

I guess maybe I'll pick ESO back up — but only so I can see if the lack of restrictions is a good move or a bad one. The developers appear to be trying to make it like the main series, so why not just make a new one instead?

Speaking of not moving on, we're getting Skyrim Remastered. I wish Bethesda had decided to give that treatment to Morrowind or Daggerfall, though. Those are the two Elder Scrolls games that need and deserve it the most, in my opinion. Some of the new DOOM maps look very not-red-and-brown, which is a nice change of pace — and I'm all for it slowly becoming classic Halo, because that's what originally sold me on it.

The new customization options for Fallout 4 look really sweet and obviously so do the new areas, so I'm really hoping the season pass goes on sale soon. Creating a vault sounds cool as well, but I'm not sure how enthralling it'll be.

Bethesda also devoted a lot of time to Dishonored 2 but, to me, the first Dishonored was a mess of dumb story and clunky, boring gameplay. It felt like Thief meets Dark Messiah of Might & Magic but without the fun or intrigue, and I bet even its fans got sick of how much presentation time the sequel was given.

Also announced: VR compatibility for numerous games, which is neat to see for those who care. And I suppose Elder Scrolls Legends looks okay or whatever. I'm feeling like the company should probably save its announcements for other conferences when they have nothing huge (not that it was the waste that EA's presentation was).